Moving on in our time-traveling-in-ancient-civilizations unit, we made a stop at some major rivers in Asia. Never was a subject invented for second graders drier than the identification of rivers. Yawn. But the Core Curriculum encourages a look at some of the more major rivers in history, specifically for our purposes the Indus, Ganges, Yellow, … More Rivers and Catan
So last week, I wrote about how my second graders made passports to keep track of their time-traveling through ancient cultures. This week, I’d like to talk about how we tackled Ancient Greece. On the first day, after making the passports, we still had about 20 minutes, so we flew very briefly to Ancient Greece, read … More Ancient Greece 3 Ways – for Second Graders
I’m a lover of history. I love it so much I have a degree in it. But it can be hard to bring it down to a kid’s level without losing a lot, including the kid’s interest. This is a problem compounded by sometimes apparently arbitrary decisions by policy makers about what is grade-appropriate. Two … More Passports to History – Time Traveling in Second Grade
Fall, fall, wonderful fall. The time for field trips to the farm (for us city folk at least) and lots of hard work for kids actually growing up in farm country. But with fewer and fewer kids growing up with access to the growing process, many in the new generation are experiencing a serious disconnect … More Food Doesn’t Grow In Grocery Stores: A Harvest Lesson
Halloween is nearly upon us! How did that happen?! I’m usually much better prepared – I haven’t even started costume shopping yet! Fortunately this Halloween-themed sequencing lesson takes next to zero ahead-of-time prep. That’s what I love about dance-integrated lessons. You don’t have to cut anything out. For this lesson, I’ve always used Inside a … More A Halloween Sequencing Lesson in Dance.
Fall is my favorite season. Gorgeous temperatures (usually), gorgeous foliage (almost always), crunchy leaves underfoot (I don’t have to rake them), cozy sweaters, the beginning of hot chocolate season, and pumpkin everything! There are a gazillion great fall lesson compilations out there, like here, and here, and here (especially love the one at that last link … More Seasons, Cycles, and Worms: A Less Obvious Fall Science Unit
Columbus Was Not A Nice Guy In fourteen hundred and ninety-two, Columbus sailed the ocean blue…. If you grew up anywhere in the US in the last hundred years, chances are good that you learned this little jingle, and can probably call up a few other words associated with Christopher Columbus. Explorer. Voyage. New World. … More Turning Columbus Day into Indigenous Peoples Day.
Pardon the super-lateness of this post. The baby Would. Not. Nap. So, you may have seen this image making the social media rounds last week: And if you were lucky, you saw one of many excellent rebuttals, like this one, explaining why 1) this check is nonsense and 2) common core math is not nonsense. … More Arts Integration and that Viral Check Written in “Common Core Math.”
We are mostly through September, and that means that pretty much everybody, even us NYC late-starters, are back in the trenches. Just because the first day of school is over doesn’t mean we’re done with the jitters. Parent nights! Conferences! IEP meetings! District walk-throughs! Observations! Fall testing! The Teacher High Stress List seems endless, and … More 14 Ways to De-Stress in a Hurry.
Happy New Year to all my Jewish friends! I’m not Jewish, but since everyone I love works or studies in education and is off school, I’m “off” too having quality time with Mr. and Baby Lin, so here’s a guest post I wrote for a great edtech company called buncee on creating writing prompts. They’re … More Arts-Integrated Writing Prompts with Buncee.com
Meghan E. B. Lin 